


like a crash test car

by coricomile



Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Dreams, Introspection, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-24
Updated: 2013-07-24
Packaged: 2017-12-21 04:59:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/896080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coricomile/pseuds/coricomile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“It is only the dream,” Cecil said, his hands on the wires of his headphones. His fingers curled into the plastic, eyes averted from Carlos’ face. If he looked too long, he always felt as though he were looking into the sun. “We share the dream, so others don’t have to.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	like a crash test car

 

_We are a patient, but resilient little city! We have big dreams- sometimes scary, unforgettable dreams that repeat on the same date every year and are shared by every person in town- but we make those big dreams come true!_

_-Cecil, The Drawbridge_

He had never been young, just as the town had never been young. It was, and he was, and everything that existed had merely came into being because- Because, he supposed. Because the City Council needed a city to council, or the hooded figures needed a place to gather sacrifices. Magic was only magic if it was beyond compare.

Though he had never been young, Cecil had the dream like children had nightmares. Or so he was told. He laid awake in his bed late at night, eyes on the glowing plaster of his ceiling, and saw the terrors creep into his vision until he was no longer awake or asleep. In the space where they dreamt, there was no life. Only the collective fear of an entire town of people dreaming about the end of the world.

And Carlos, beautiful Carlos with his perfect hair and bright laugh, came to the station the nights after the dream, his eyes shaded and his hands shaking. Poor Carlos, poor sweet Carlos with his beeping machines and his scientific studies that always fell apart when touched by water. He had never seen Night Vale as anything but magic.

“It is only the dream,” Cecil said, his hands on the wires of his headphones. His fingers curled into the plastic, eyes averted from Carlos’ face. If he looked too long, he always felt as though he were looking into the sun. “We share the dream, so others don’t have to.”

“But _why_?” Carlos asked. Oh, but his voice was sugar and Cecil was honey. Cecil knew many answers, deep inside where the shadows crawled and Night Vale shaped his soul. He knew, like the all knew, but the words were things that could not be formed.

“Science isn’t everything,” Cecil said eventually, long after Carlos had left him and the blinking red light of the studio had flashed off for the night.

As it always did, time went on, ignoring the broken clocks and the too long nights. Cecil read the news and listened to the weather and waited for the dream to come once again. He had never been young, but he had always hoped to grow up.

“Tomorrow,” old woman Josie said on the phone, the static of her voice weary. “They say it is tomorrow.” And, dutifully, Cecil reported the report and waited for night because no one could escape.

He was not surprised when Carlos arrived after the show, lab coat in disarray and eyes open so very wide. Cecil did not feel surprise. Not after the last PTA meeting, where it was suggested to be an outdated emotion. Some days he missed it.

“How did you get into Night Vale?” He asked. The station blinked and hummed and shut itself down around them, even as Cecil led them through door after door to the street. He wondered if the bus would be running, or if the driver, too, would be waiting for the dream to take him away.

“I-” Carlos, beautifully baffled Carlos, shrugged. “I don’t remember.”

“No one ever does,” Cecil said consolingly. For a moment, he thought to touch the warm, long line of Carlos’ arm, but he could not bring himself to do it. Maybe one day. “The City Council recommends forgetting all dreams, unless they are of the Glow Cloud. If that helps.”

“How are you so blasé about everything?” Carlos asked. He was staring at the sky, the slowly growing ends of his perfect hair curled from the fading heat. Above them, the sky stretched on and on, hunter green and starless. The hooded figures had stolen them all away one night in a fit of sleeplessness. Sometimes, Cecil missed those, too.

“Panic never accomplishes anything,” he said. “Would you like to see something wonderful?” And though Carlos did not agree, he did not disagree, and Cecil led him to the fire escape at the back of the station.

They climbed, silent and somber, the weight of the oncoming dream settling onto their shoulders. Below them, station management moaned and creaked through their own special nightly routine. Cecil wondered if they had the dream or if they merely witnessed it. Or, perhaps, if they were the cause.

Night Vale stretched out in front of them like a maze. Cecil knew every inch like he knew his own freckles, but he could hear Carlos’ sweet, soft intake of breath. He supposed there was nothing like the view from high above.

“Do you like it?” Cecil asked. He felt slow. Suddenly tired. At the edge of the town, just beyond the car lot, the black hovering shape of the dream began to spread its tentacles into trailers and homes and bodies. It was coming, and they would not stop it.

“How can you let this happen over and over again?”

For a moment, Cecil felt as though he had been struck. Carlos, his sweet Carlos, was angry at him for something he would never be able to control. He shrank into himself, shivering into the sudden cold. If he slept up here, passed out next to Carlos, he was sure he would see the inside of the retrainment box again.

As always, it would be worth the risk.

“We dream so others don’t have to,” Cecil said, a repeat song that had been played in him since he arrived with Night Vale. “I... don’t know what would happen if we didn’t.”

“Have you ever tried?” Carlos was so near to him, so warm even though he trembled. Cecil did not smile when Carlos fitted their hands together, but the blossoming satisfaction that spread through his fingers and lips and legs made him feel alive. “Nothing here acts like it should. Can we just try to fight it, and see what happens?”

“We,” Cecil repeated, joyous. Already, his head was beginning to fill with bombs and blood and screams. The eventual end of the world, all laid out for Night Vale to see and know and never share.

“Please, Cecil.” Carlos tightened his hand, dragging them both down as his knees gave out. The bulky shape of the dream lumbered toward them, cheerful and so dark. “Please, just try.”

And on the shaking roof of the station, his ears ringing and his palm sweating and his breath flying away and Carlos depending on lowly little him, Cecil refused to be a secret keeper. And the world, the shining, beautiful world, went dark.


End file.
